1.5 generation Asian migrants and intergenerational transnationalism: Thoughts and challenges from New Zealand

Abstract

This article analyses New Zealand's post-1987 immigration patterns, specifically the arrival of East Asian professionals and their families, and their impact on the demographic and cultural composition of New Zealand society. The discussion addresses a specific and under-theorised category of migrants: school-aged children who migrate with their parents, identified as the ‘1.5 generation’. Focusing on the unique position and attributes of the 1.5 generation, it is posited that New Zealand's new intergenerational transmigrant communities seriously challenge conventional attempts to explain – and manage – migrant settlement and incorporation into host societies.

Keywords:

• transnational migration
• transmigrant
• 1.5 generation
• New Zealand
• social cohesion
• ethnic identity

Notes

1. While my focus is specifically on the New Zealand response to the new Asian migration, this should not be read to suggest the New Zealand experience is unique in this regard. Wong (1995, p. 487) briefly describes a similar, contemporary set of images attached to Chinese capitalist migrants in Canadian urban centres, as does Castles (1992, pp. 68–70) in the Australian context.

2. The term ‘Pakeha’ remains a highly contested and politically charged descriptor for New Zealand's ethnic majority population. However, it is used here to refer to ‘New Zealanders of a European background, whose cultural values and behaviour have been primarily formed from the experiences of being a member of the dominant group of New Zealand’ (Spoonley, 1993, p. 57).

3. Ip (2000, p. 6) highlights the fact that Britain has been the leading source of migrants to New Zealand (in terms of residency approvals) for all but two years in the 1990s, when the numbers of migrants from Britain were eclipsed by those from Hong Kong in 1991 and Taiwan in 1995. Britons also top the list for long-term departures. According to Ip (2000, p. 7), between 1990 and 2000, ‘[h]alf of the British migrants … eventually went home (58,739 Britons arrived and 29,920 departed from New Zealand long term in the last decade, far out-numbering any group from Asia)’.

4. The term ‘astronaut’ is commonly used in New Zealand to describe migrants who leave family dependants in the destination country while they spend significant periods working or doing business in their country of origin.